Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

Cross-border conservation efforts can yield better results at less cost

Date:

January 4, 2010

Source:

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Summary:

Coordination of conservation efforts across national boundaries could achieve significantly higher results and at less cost than conservation actions planned within individual states, researchers have found.

Share This

There could be a $67-billion savings in costs if conservation efforts of endemic vertebrates were coordinated across all the highly threatened Mediterranean ecosystem.

Credit: Boaz Shacham

Coordination of conservation efforts across national boundaries could achieve significantly higher results and at less cost than conservation actions planned within individual states, researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in Australia have found.

Related Articles

Dr. Salit Kark of the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Science and Dr. Noam Levin of the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, together with Dr Hedley Grantham and Professor Hugh Possingham from the University of Queensland in Australia, wanted to determine how much more efficient it might be if countries within the Mediterranean basin collaborated their conservation decisions and efforts.

"We wanted to investigate the costs and benefits of international collaboration on biodiversity conservation. We chose the terrestrial Mediterranean basin due to its complexity. On the one hand it is an important global biodiversity hotspot with many endemic and rare species. On the other hand, it holds over 25 countries with 250 million people, and large threats are posed to its unique biodiversity. Currently, conservation efforts are largely uncoordinated across the whole region," said Dr Kark, head of the Hebrew University Biodiversity Research Group.

The study -- featured on the cover of a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA -- found that there could be a $67-billion savings in costs if conservation efforts of endemic vertebrates were coordinated across all the highly threatened Mediterranean ecosystem, compared with an uncoordinated plan. The amount saved is estimated as 45% of the total cost.

A coordinated plan with just the European Union (EU) countries would also lead to substantial savings compared with no coordination across the Mediterranean Basin's countries. The authors also discuss the limitations of coordinating efforts.

"Because countries belonging to the European Union cover nearly half of the area of the Mediterranean Basin, we estimated the costs and benefits of conservation when efforts are coordinated across the whole Mediterranean and compared this to an EU partly coordinated plan and with the current situation where each country does its own thing," Dr Levin, a Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing expert, said.

"While many conservation studies consider biodiversity, in the real world one needs to consider the cost of conservation and the threats to biodiversity. This study shows that when conservation costs and threats are taken into account, conservation is much more efficient," said Prof. Possingham. It would be ideal if conservation dollars could be directed to areas with the highest return on investment, however, this requires the ability to transfer money across national boundaries, something that is rarely considered, said Dr Grantham.

"The initiative declared in the recent Paris Summit for the Mediterranean, which nearly all heads of state from the Mediterranean Basin, including those from Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean Basin and North Africa attended, provides a political basis for coordination. Conservation would be an excellent avenue for countries across the region to work together," said Dr Kark.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Cross-border conservation efforts can yield better results at less cost." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 January 2010. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230092717.htm>.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (2010, January 4). Cross-border conservation efforts can yield better results at less cost. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 31, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230092717.htm

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Cross-border conservation efforts can yield better results at less cost." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230092717.htm (accessed March 31, 2015).

More From ScienceDaily

More Earth & Climate News

Featured Research

Mar. 31, 2015 — Soil organic matter, long thought to be a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon, may be much more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought. Scientists have found that the common ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — The ocean is a large reservoir of dissolved organic molecules, and many of these molecules are stable against microbial utilization for hundreds to thousands of years. They contain a similar amount ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Using the assessment tool ForWarn, US Forest Service researchers can monitor the growth and development of vegetation that signals winter's end and the awakening of a new growing season. Now these ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Geoscientists have revealed information about how continents were generated on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago -- and how those processes have continued within the last 70 million years to ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Until now electric fences and trenches have proved to be the most effective way of protecting farms and villages from night time raids by hungry elephants. But researchers think they may have come up ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — The volcanologist Stephen Self, an expert on super-eruptions, was the first modern-day scientist to visit Tambora in Indonesia, the site of the largest volcanic eruption in 1,000 years. On the 200th ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Researchers have detected a human fingerprint deep in the Borneo rainforest in Southeast Asia. Cold winds blowing from the north carry industrial pollutants from East Asia to the equator, with ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Landfills can make a profit from all their rotting waste and a new patent explains exactly how to make the most out of the stinky garbage sites. Decomposing trash produces methane, a landfill gas ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — As the five-year anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig approaches, a new report looks at how twenty species of wildlife are faring in the aftermath of the ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Scientists have discovered why the first buds of spring come increasingly earlier as the climate changes. As the climate changes the sweet spot for seeds comes earlier in the year, so first flowers ... full story

Related Stories

Nov. 6, 2014 — Biodiversity offset projects are failing to prevent the widespread decline of gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, and could be trading the life of one ape for another, experts ... full story

Oct. 22, 2012 — Wildlife conservation efforts in the United States are facing habitat loss, climate change and major reductions in funding. To address these threats, a group of prominent wildlife biologists and ... full story

Apr. 25, 2011 — After three rigorous weeks of conducting the National Rhino Census in Nepal, new data on the population of greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) have been formally released. According ... full story

Oct. 12, 2010 — A best practice framework employed by thousands of successful businesses worldwide has been adapted by two academics in the UK to help conservation managers improve their consideration, analysis and ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.